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If causal factors leading to housing unaffordability are not resolved over multiple generations, the social stratification will start to resemble countries like Russia, where a small elite control a vast share of the country’s total wealth.
The result? A society where the threat of class warfare would loom large. [...]
San Francisco and the Bay Area have long been committed to values which embrace inclusivity and counterculture. To see these values fraying so publicly adds insult to injury
— qz.com
More from San Francisco's housing crisis on Archinect:What these “pre-rent control” stats might reveal about SF's soaring housing costsBay Area media ban together for homelessness advocacyDon't blame the tech bros: SF's housing crisis is bonkers because of zoning, not startupsMan living in... View full entry
As rents spiral in London, one company is proposing a solution. The Collective is a new block of apartments that acts like a giant shared house: small private bedrooms with communal laundry, kitchens, spa, cinema and workspaces … and some covert matchmaking by the managers. Our series on the global revolution in urban living goes inside the modern-day boarding house — theguardian.com
Read related articles here:Manchester's economic boom threatens its cultural identityTo live in London you can't be a LondonerLondon fails to achieve any targets for affordable housing View full entry
Last year, Greater Manchester’s economy outgrew that of inner-city London. Further devolution of powers from Whitehall are about to be realised, and the campaign for the title of first elected mayor of Greater Manchester has picked up pace.
However, Manchester is also about to contend with the capital in other ways. A major housing crisis lurks, and a growing deficit of office space needs to be dealt with. To make amends, Manchester’s skyline is heading for dramatic change.
— theguardian.com
Read more article concerning the housing crisis spreading across UK cities:To live in London you can't be a LondonerLondon fails to achieve any targets for affordable housingArchitects design ‘the house of tomorrow’ View full entry
Private property developers are outmanoeuvring councils in housing negotiations and routinely delivering fewer affordable homes than town halls want, an industry analysis has revealed.
Amid growing anger at the sale to foreign buyers of almost two-thirds of London’s tallest residential skyscraper, which includes no affordable housing, it has emerged that not one London borough which set targets met them in the last six years.
— the Guardian
For more on the increasingly dire state of housing in London, take a look at some past coverage:London's Bleak Housing£950 for a mouldy 'central' flat? Welcome to London.The root of London's housing crisis lies beyond its bordersLondon's housing crisis is creating a chasm... View full entry
A City Council committee could take the first steps Tuesday toward mandating that developers include affordable units in new housing complexes to be built in several East Austin neighborhoods.
The proposal by Council Member Greg Casar, who chairs the council’s Planning and Neighborhoods Committee, comes as soaring rents have pushed poorer and minority residents out of the city.
— My Statesman
The plan would mark a significant shift in direction from the current, incentive-based approach that allows developers to build larger buildings in exchange for including affordable housing units. As it stands now, developers can also pay a fee to the city's housing fund in order to build... View full entry
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) invited six contemporary architecture practices to create speculative responses to the UK’s housing crisis for the exhibition, At Home in Britain: Designing the House of Tomorrow.
Drawing on materials from the RIBA archives, the studios from the UK, France and the Netherlands produced designs that re-examine the familiar housing typologies of the cottage, terrace and flat.
— thespaces.com
Read relating article here:Architects advice to London's new mayor Sadiq Khan£950 for a mouldy 'central' flat? Welcome to London.The root of London's housing crisis lies beyond its bordersLondon's Bleak Housing View full entry
What’s the root cause of Los Angeles’ affordable housing crisis? Many blame the new luxury housing developments springing up... driving up interest in the neighborhood and attracting hipsters. Landlords take notice and soon rents start climbing. That’s the story anyway.
But here’s the thing: If booming development in hot markets like Hollywood and downtown is why rents keep going up... why have the same price increases hit locales with extremely limited development?
— LA Times
"Because our problems aren’t driven by a local phenomenon but by a regional one: low residential vacancy rates. Nothing is more important, and data from the American Community Survey confirm this. Zooming out to look at the 20 largest U.S. cities rather than local ZIP codes, the... View full entry
“How can you morally and ethically justify in your own mind working on a project that would take people accustomed to living on the ground, of having their gardens, chickens, and their little animals in their yards, having space around them, having flowers, to live in these twenty-four... View full entry
As Sadiq Khan arrived for his first day at work as London’s new mayor, architects urged him to be bold in tackling the city’s housing crisis.
They warned that his policies alone won’t be enough to solve the problems and advised him to widen his approach.
“Bold strategic moves are what’s required, and I therefore hope the new mayor has the stomach for a fight,” said Russell Curtis of RCKa.
— bdonline.co.uk
There are high hopes for Khan, find out more about some of the issues he will have to tackle in his new position: £950 for a mouldy 'central' flat? Welcome to London.The root of London's housing crisis lies beyond its bordersLondon's housing crisis is creating a chasm between the rich and... View full entry
Homelessness increased in the last year in the city and county of Los Angeles, leaving nearly 47,000 people in the streets and shelters despite an intensive federal push that slashed the ranks of homeless veterans by nearly a third, according to figures released Wednesday by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. — the Los Angeles Times
"Nearly two-thirds of the homeless people tallied countywide, or 28,000, were in the city of Los Angeles, representing an 11% jump in January from a year earlier, a report from the agency stated. The county's homeless population grew 5.7%."For more on Los Angeles' devastating... View full entry
Back in 2004, Elio Ciampanella was evicted from his apartment of three decades...So he applied for an apartment in Rome’s public housing. And he waited. More than a decade passed.
Then, in February, [Ciampanella] unexpectedly had his choice of several apartments. His tale might be considered one of patience rewarded, but there was a twist: It turned out Rome’s municipal government never really had a shortage of properties.
— the New York Times
"Instead, the government actually owned so many thousands of apartments and buildings that no one was quite certain how many there were, who lived in them or where they were. That was, until staff members for Rome’s new interim administrator, Francesco Paolo Tronca, discovered nine boxes... View full entry
If you want evidence that London’s renters are being taken advantage of, look no further than a new social media campaign. Launched Monday, the #rantyourrent hashtag encourages London’s overcharged and poorly housed tenants to visually detail the bad conditions they’re expected to put up with in return for large sums of monthly rent.
The results, detailed in a new Tumblr called Vent Your Rent, make for sobering viewing.
— citylab.com
More articles on London and the housing crisis here:The root of London's housing crisis lies beyond its bordersLondon's housing crisis is creating a chasm between the rich and poorLondon's Bleak Housing View full entry
strict zoning laws in the Bay Area make it almost impossible to significantly expand the housing stock there. [...]
As a result, the tech boom simply means that housing gets less and less affordable for anyone who doesn't work in tech or already own a home.
A lot of people are blaming the tech boom itself for the Bay Area's housing problems. But the technology boom is only a problem because the region's housing markets are functioning so poorly.
— vox.com
Related on Archinect:Man living in plywood "pod" in SF apartment told to knock it off by housing inspectorSilicon Valley is set to get over 10K more housing units – is this the beginning of the end of its housing crisis?Exceeding height restrictions to break a housing logjam in San... View full entry
Squalid, chaotic, overwhelmed: Piraeus is the first port of call for the thousands now trapped in the capital, on the frontline of Europe’s refugee crisis. Since the closure of Greece’s northern border and with it the Balkan migrant trail – a move that has resulted in more than 46,000 stranded on the Greek mainland – it has been emblematic of the country’s inability to cope with a situation few had envisaged. — The Guardian
"In passenger terminals never built to deal with a humanitarian crisis, facilities have been rudimentary, tensions high, and resources vastly overstretched."The article notes that the growing refugee population is putting pressure on Athenian society, which was already tense as the country... View full entry
Under the new law, the city would be able to relax some of the rules that often stop such [bootlegged] apartments from being legalized, allowing more density and loosening parking requirements.
In return, landlords who seek to legalize bootlegged units will have to provide some affordable apartments at those buildings — and guarantee that they remain affordable for at least 55 years, under a legal covenant documented with the county recorder.
— latimes.com
Related on Archinect:Clickbait is making affordable housing even more of an uphill battleHomes of the homeless, seized: L.A. cracks down on free housingCalifornia to decrease parking requirements for affordable housingDevelopers in California can be required to include low-income housing, courts... View full entry